She shrugged. ‘Only phrase-book Italian, anyway.’
‘So.’ He spoke English now with only a slight accent. ‘You are English. Tell me, did I hurt you?’
Emma shook her head, ignoring the fact that when she had stepped back so precipitately someone had kicked her ankle and it was really quite painful now.
‘Good, good. You are holidaying here, signorina?’
‘Yes, signore.’ Emma nodded, and then realizing she was allowing herself to be ‘picked up’ as they say in England, she began to move away, but the man stopped her, a light hand on her arm, his fingers hard and cool.
‘Don’t go, signorina. Allow me to buy you a Campari, if only to show that you accepted my apology.’
Emma shook her head. ‘Thank you, but no, signore. My … my friends are waiting for me. I must go. And of course I accept your apology. It was as much my fault as yours.’
The man’s eyes were amused. ‘Very well, but at least tell me your name.’
Emma smiled. ‘All right. Emma Maxwell.’
‘Bene. Arrivederci, signorina.’
‘Good-bye.’ Emma walked resolutely across to the elevator, but she felt supremely conscious that his eyes followed her, and felt a leap of something like excitement inside her at the possible prospect of seeing him again.
It was not until she gained the sanctity of her own room that she remembered her earlier decision to tell Celeste that evening that she was leaving in the morning. Emma faltered, and walked across to her dressing table mirror, drawn by a desire to see her reflection, to study it appraisingly, and just how stupidly she was behaving. What would a man like that want with an idiot teenager like herself? If she had been madly beautiful like Celeste, there might have been some reason for her to feel this mad surge of happiness, but she had nothing in particular to commend her. Her hair was blonde, it was true, but it was disappointingly straight and at the moment hung over her shoulders in silky strands; her complexion was fair, but would soon tan in the hot sun; and her eyes which she had always considered her best feature, large and wide-spaced and most definitely green, had lashes which were nowhere near as long as that man’s. And finally she came to the pink gown; it really did do nothing for her whatsoever, and she decided that whatever happened, first thing in the morning she would visit one of those small markets, that abounded in the tiny alleyways among the canals, and buy some material and cottons and run herself up a couple of dresses in colours which she knew suited her. A vivid red, perhaps, and that gorgeous shade of kingfisher blue.
But first of all there was Celeste, and somehow now the desire to escape from Venice at the first opportunity seemed to have lost its appeal.
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